I never saw any point in denying a cat crime. Catwoman’s exploits
are nothing to be ashamed of, I’m the best thief in the country, some say in
the world. The pearls and Picassos, Rembrandts and Romanov emeralds I
acquired were the finest prizes any cat burglar could aspire to, and the
security I defeated to get them was the best in the existence. So I
never bothered with denials if Batman burst into a cat lair and said the
Austrian Embassy wanted their crown jewels back.

But if I had wanted to deny it,
I would have known better than to say I’d never even seen the Rudolf II
crown made of pure gold enameled with diamonds, rubies, sapphires and
pearls. I certainly wouldn’t have added that I didn’t touch the
imperial orb either, or the scepter, crown, and lance of the Holy Roman
Empire, and an unpedigreed but pretty ruby necklace the Austrian ambassador
bought for his mistress and was keeping in the same safe over the weekend.
I can only assume that a detective of Batman’s insight would find that kind
of specific and preemptive denial transparent—and somewhat rude. It
would be unworthy of a thief like Catwoman. It would be unworthy of a
crimefighter like Batman.

Fast forward to Bruce in my suite rather than Batman in a cat lair.
“I wasn’t avoiding the opera, I wasn’t avoiding our special place, I wasn’t
avoiding you.”

I didn’t know what to think, how to
feel or what to say. He’s been so sweet and attentive since the Ivy
mess. He’s been busy, sure, but that’s never been anything to be
suspicious of. Batman gets busy sometimes, so does Bruce Wayne.
When he is around, he’s been loving and thoughtful. It’s been
like those early weeks when we first started dating. I let myself
believe it was all exactly as it seemed. I let myself believe Bruce
was happy that I was the one who saved him from Ivy. I let myself
think that… oh, hell.

“I didn’t take the crown jewels from the Austrian embassy” and
“I wasn’t avoiding the opera” aren’t the only kinds of denial.

Butlers aren’t psychic, not exactly.
Not like the soothsayer in an Elizabethan tragedy warning the hero to
beware the coming of midday for the visitor from the skies shall surely come
again. It’s simply that, immersed as any butler must be in the
day-to-day detail of his employer’s life, he evolves a certain sense for
these things. Alfred was quite sure that at least one or two of the
morning’s visitors would be returning, so he wasn’t surprised when the
kitchen door swung open. No one had been in the cave when Superman’s
return triggered the sensors, and Master Dick didn’t feel the need to ring
the doorbell. And yet, when the pair came into the kitchen with a
cheery “Knock-knock, we’re back,” Alfred merely nodded as if he’d been
expecting them. He offered them refreshment, showed them to the
library and morning room respectively, and then went to fetch Miss Selina
and Master Bruce. He told Miss Selina that Superman had returned and
was waiting in the morning room to resume their earlier dialogue. He
informed Master Bruce that Master Dick wanted a word in the library.
Strictly speaking, that is where his responsibility ended, the visitors
sorted into the appropriate rooms and the Master and Mistress duly informed.
Yet Alfred still hovered in the hall midway between the two rooms, sensing
with that butler’s acuity that he would still be needed.

He was immediately proven right as Bruce crossed the Great Hall and saw
Selina coming down the stairs. Alfred saw them exchange a few words of
pleasant acknowledgement, during which Alfred held his breath… and then
permitted himself an irate-but-restrained exhale too quiet to be called a
sigh. Master Bruce had clearly learned that Miss Selina was going to
see Superman. Even from Alfred’s position in the hall, the shift in
his demeanor was obvious: his neck tensed, his jaw stiffened, his weight
shifted towards the morning room, and then he followed Selina without so
much as glancing at the library. Alfred slipped quietly into the room
and informed Master Dick that he did not think Bruce would be joining him
promptly. It might be best, Alfred suggested, if Master Dick joined
the others in the morning room.

Claws.

Claws…

If there are no anagrams for claws,
did that make it better or worse? What special hell was in store for him
when Selina sliced him to ribbons and he hadn’t even the consolation of a
single anagram? These questions flitted absently in the back of
Eddie’s mind while he gave his full attention to the true riddle of the day:
How could he fix this?

Harvey. Very Ha.

There had to be a way to fix the
situation with Harvey. Selina—or possibly Bruce—possibly Bruce and
Selina—but most likely just Selina—would kill him if he didn’t. At
least death by claws and batarangs yielded hundreds of anagrams…

It was frustrating. Dick knew
well enough that when Bruce was “supervising,” that was it. Whether it
was your first solo on a new level of Zogger, surveillance on a Joker
target, or infiltrating the perimeter of a DEMON compound, it was just the
same: he was focused on this and nothing else would take priority.
Dick couldn’t see that there was anything to supervise in the morning room;
Superman was just talking through details of this tiger thing with Selina.
When and how the animals would be arriving, specifics on landscaping he was
volunteering at the Catitat, it was all pretty dull stuff. So Dick
tried to pull Bruce aside, casually and quietly. With a look, with a
smile, and finally with a casual prompt.

“Bruce, can I have a minute?”

It didn’t work. Just like when he was Robin chattering about school
or something to pass the time during a long surveillance. There would
be a word or two, as if Batman really was listening, a non-descript movement
of the right hand, and the briefest flicker of the eyes. But after
that split-second considering whatever he’d said, Batman clearly found it
not-urgent-compared-to-this because his attention riveted right back on the
warehouse, office building, or loading dock… or in this case, Superman
talking Kryptonian fist-diamonds with Selina.

“There is a collector in Hong Kong that always wants to buy up any
specimens I create, so you could always go that route to convert the
diamonds into cash,” Superman was saying.

“The Gotham diamond district handles
gem trade for the whole country,” Selina answered lightly. “I’m sure
I’ll have no problem finding a buyer. If Hong Kong wants them, they
can try their luck with the dealers on 47th Street. Least I
can do for those fellas considering all I’ve taken over the years.”

Bruce’s mood darkened perceptibly at the mention of the diamond district
and Selina’s familiarity with it. Dick couldn’t know it was because
the district was the first subject Batman and Catwoman discussed when they
began their “Walapang” arrangement. He only knew a darker Batman vibe
was suddenly emanating from the easy chair, and that Selina and Superman
were too engrossed in their conversation to notice.

Selina said Bengals in most zoos subsist on chicken, horsemeat and
kangaroo five days a week and fast on bones for two. Superman said the
animals had been badly starved by the Dhumavati cult and the Star Labs guys
thought it would take a while to ease them onto a healthy eating schedule.
Bruce repeated that not-now-Robin/surveillance-comes-first gesture.

“Bruce,” Dick tried again.

Selina asked how the animals had been penned, because tigers are solitary
in the wild, not living in prides or groups except when mating or raising
their young. Superman said they were living together in the Dhumanvati
compound. Bruce clarified that they were together when Batman and
Superman encountered them in the death maze, but they had no knowledge of
where or how they were kept before that…

Dick had enough. Without even realizing it, he’d tapped Bruce
brusquely on the shoulder and when that produced only another vague gesture,
he grunted. Bruce turned, and Dick heard his own voice adopting a dark
bat gravel as he declared, “Cave. Talk. Now.”

Yep, ‘Death by claws and batarangs’ yielded hundreds of anagrams.
Extravagant anagrams with CANDALABRA, BAD ANGST and GRAND ATTACHABLE WANDS.
Not that there was any satisfaction in that. The only satisfaction to
be had was solving the underlying puzzle: How to fix the Harvey mess so the
aforementioned death by claws and batarangs would never occur…

The first thing they teach you working at a place like Arkham is that you
mustn’t blame yourself. The patients were dangerously psychotic to
begin with. Whatever progress you made, there could always be
setbacks, and with these particular psychoses, backsliding would often be
grisly life-threatening affairs. The psychotherapist must not blame
himself. He must remember always that whatever was said or not said in
session, whatever he saw or didn’t see in a patient’s demeanor, it was
ultimately the Joker, Mr. Freeze, Scarecrow or whoever that gassed the
stadium, blew up the theatre, or tossed the innocent bystander off a bridge.

That was well and good, Dr. Bartholomew reflected, except that in Roxy Rocket’s case the violent episode
really was his fault. It had nothing to do with her recovery
from a Type-T thrill-addiction complicated by aggravated entitlement
responses stemming from acute insecurity, a heightened adrenaline reliance
and panic fetish overtones. It resulted from his going to her for
directions to the Iceberg Lounge. She’d wound up in the infirmary, the
victim of a Joker attack, because of him. Technically because she was
gossiping about him and Raven, which was just another way of saying because
of him. Even if her injuries weren’t severe, they were entirely his
fault and he was making her recovery his first priority. The schedule
he set up was based loosely on the fast-track rehabilitation program, but in
Roxy’s case he would make sure that there was no automation in the process.
There would be no blind checking of boxes, no passing her through for
completion of a level without truly achieving its goals, no credit given for
participation without true progress. He would personally see to it.

Bruce was not happy.

“Cave. Talk. Now.” As soon as the words were spoken,
Dick tried to pass it off as a joke, but Bruce could see something was up
and clearly he had to deal with it before it produced anything worse.
He was not happy about it. Clark’s earlier visit had confirmed his
worse fears about the trainwreck potential in a Superman/Catitat scenario,
even if Selina didn’t have a hair-trigger on the subject. But rather
than being in the morning room keeping an eye on the situation, he’d been
dragged off for this tête-à-tête with Dick. What’s worse, “Cave.
Talk. Now” had acted on Dick like the Dhumavati vanquishing spell
(backed up by cat’s eye kryptonite) acted on Superman. Aware that he’d
essentially “pulled a Bruce,” Dick was now overcompensating, adopting an
easy sincerity and non-confrontational candor that was… beyond unnerving.

“Look, I agree that Tim and Cassie, and even Helena and Barbara, are
overreacting to the new procedures. But I also know there’s something
more behind all of this. So what is it?”

Beyond unnerving.

In pure shock, Bruce expanded the kneejerk “Nothing” for an entire four
sentences, specifying that the team’s reaction was entirely consistent and
expected, that it had happened before both in Gotham, as Dick well knew, and
in the Justice League any time there was a crackdown, and concluding
that “Just because I’m tightening up some procedures doesn’t mean anything
is wrong—other than a well-meaning Kryptonian upstairs paving the morning
room with good intentions.”

“C’mon, Bruce. It’s me you’re
talking to. All the rest of it, okay, you’re tightening up procedures
because we’ve all gotten lax lately, fine. But excess Zogger?
Bruce, it’s me. There is a history of excess Zogger drills.
It means something’s on your mind that you don’t want to talk about and that
something goes meow.”

“Dick, I’ve been more than patient with this little ‘intervention’ but
there is a limit,” Bruce said firmly.

“Fine, Bruce, you don’t want to talk
about it, or maybe you just don’t want to talk to me. But you need to
do something about it because it’s starting to bleed over into the
rest of the team.”

“If what I saw of Tim’s performance this morning is any indication, the
team could use the practice,” came the graveling reply.

Dick sighed.

“I’m not disputing that, Bruce. I am 100-percent behind whatever
you think is necessary to improve the team. It’s not about the
changes, it’s about what they mean. If you don’t want to talk to me,
fine. I just want you to admit the situation exists and deal with it
somehow before—”

“This conversation is over,” Bruce
said abruptly. It was different from the earlier replies. A
density shift had occurred and the voice wasn’t just Batman, it was a
no-nonsense if you have something to say, say it later, right now take
the rebreather, fire a line, and don’t ask questions Batman. Dick
reverted instinctively into alert obedience and followed Bruce’s eyes.
He saw an alert flashing at Workstation 2, and the feed from a closed
circuit camera showing a taxi driving through the front gate.

“Aw damn, extra visitor,” Dick said. It was inconvenient, an
interruption, but that’s all it was. He didn’t see any cause for the
foreboding gravel of the Psychobat.

Upstairs, Alfred greeted the new guest with polite formality, but he was
genuinely pleased under the stoic veneer. He had feared the new knock
at the door might be a returning Guest #3, Edward Nigma. This visitor
was a very different prospect. Alfred showed him to the north wing,
thinking to keep him isolated from the other guests, but as they walked down
the hall, the gentleman noticed color and movement in one of the rooms.
He said nothing at the time, but once they reached the north drawing room,
he voiced his curiosity.

“Was that Superman?” he asked in whispered awe.

Alfred could see no credible way to deny it. It was plausible that
Superman was in the house, having some business with Master Bruce or Miss
Selina. It was not plausible that Alfred could have opened the door
for the Man of Steel and not known who he was. So he murmured a
suitably restrained “I believe so, sir” and then withdrew.

So I finally got Superman to
understand about the trees. Tigers are solitary; they prefer to live
and hunt alone and communicate with each other by scent. Tree trunks
are popular for marking, and they’re effective scratching posts for
sharpening claws. Introducing six new tigers into the Catitat meant
there would be six new tiger territories in the Catitat and a lot of
marking going on. Current loathing for Pammy notwithstanding, I’d be
needing some trees. Old trees. Big trees. I had to remind
him what a fully-grown Bengal was capable of, because he was talking about
some new growths from a magazine syndicate’s paper forest in Canada.

“Remember the deathtrap, Spitcurl:
teeth, claws, body armor shredded like tinfoil, Bruce’s thigh shredded like
hamburger? I need trees. At the risk of sounding like
Poison Ivy, I need tall, noble, strong, large, wide trees. Not
seedlings planted last year to become next year’s Neiman Marcus catalog.”

He had this little smile like he finally understood, but Alfred had
stepped into the room. Before Superman could say a word, we heard that
soft cough that meant if it wasn’t too much trouble, Alfred would like to
have the floor.

“Excuse me for interrupting, sir, miss,” he said formally. “A
Mister Dent is here to see Miss Selina.”

Great. I was just thinking earlier how I missed Harvey, but at this
moment, another (quasi)-rogue guest was the last thing I needed. I
glanced warily at the be-caped spectacle standing by the fireplace, but it
was suddenly Clark Kent standing there instead. Ten thousand
Bat-entrances and exits that make other people jump, and I’ve never batted
an eye. That Super-switch, I let out a gasp. Alfred just gave
that little cough again.

“My apologies, sir,” he said dryly, “but I believe Mr. Dent did
notice the distinct suggestion of a red and blue costume as we passed the
door to this room, and expressed his curiosity as to what Superman might be
doing here.”

“So much for that,” I started to say—but only a syllable in, Clark Kent
had vanished and Superman stood in his place again.

“Stop that,” I hissed.

They began with Roxy’s lack of “star status” as a Rogue. When Roxy
Rocket committed a crime, it didn’t warrant Bat-attention. The
“juniors” usually swept up her messes. Which she’d noticed.

“There’s only one upside to the junior bats, Doc,” she declared
philosophically. “If you’ve ever been beaten up by Batgirl, the
possibility that you could die definitely crosses your mind…”

Archetypal Type-T response.

“Nine or ten times…”

Thrill-addict.

“In the course of one punch…”

Adrenaline reliance.

“And the resulting flight backwards…”

Panic Fetish

“Into whatever very hard object is behind you.”

And then:

“You can’t hold your head up with the likes of the Penguin and Scarecrow
and Poison Ivy…”

Typical insecurity.

“…not daring to even mention a heavy hitter like the Joker, when the last
six times you’ve been busted, it was either Batgirl, Robin and Batgirl,
Black Canary and Batgirl, or Officer Dempsey and two actresses on a ride
along.”

“And this ride along they’re on is because they’re going to be starring
as lady cops in a new series, and they’re sure to need a good stuntwoman of
that height and build. If I’d be free by the time the shooting starts,
maybe they could put in a good word.”

…

“And THEN they start asking Officer Dempsey how long he thinks I’ll be up
the river, cause the second unit starts shooting for the pilot in July.
That is NOT a story you tell at the Iceberg over a couple a brews, Doc.”

…

“So when I got some grade-A prime dish like you and Raven, I’m gonna, by
God, spread the joy!”

Alfred said Harvey caught a glimpse of Superman’s costume and was
curious. Alfred has a knack for understatement. Harvey was so
curious, it had pushed whatever he came to talk about right out of his head.
I walked in the room, and the first words out of his mouth were:

“Hi,” I said, accepting an air kiss. I saw no reason to make up a
story. The truth worked fine, so I told him Superman was trying to
place some tigers at the Catitat. “‘Free to good home.’ Long
story.”

We sat down. The pleasantries were finished and it was clearly
Harvey’s turn to talk; he’d come to see me, after all. But instead of
getting to the point, he said he’d seen Superman on the news earlier.
“He was in Florida. Something with the space shuttle.”

I was starting to think this wasn’t
enthusiasm for Superman as Superman so much as enthusiasm for
Superman as a stalling tactic, when Harvey confirmed it. He took a
deep breath, reached out impulsively, and grabbed my hand.

“Selina, this is kind of awkward, the
history being what it is. Me and Bruce. You and Bruce. We
were bachelor buddies once and then of course Darth came along and you and I
were Rogue buddies… Eddie, the Iceberg, Batman’s adversaries, crime and
criminals. It’s all very complicated.”

That’s not the kind of intro you want to hear at any time, but especially
not on a day that’s already seen “ease the tension,” “I slept with Muffy,”
Bruce and Eddie doing the James Bond baccarat table, and let’s not forget
“Oh no, Kitten, I wasn’t avoiding our special place at the opera.”

“You and Bruce are complicated,” Harvey went on. “Did you know
Eddie and I came over here one day when you two first got together, made
sure he knew the rules. We figured an ordinary guy like that, tossed
into the deep end with Catwoman and all…”

I really wanted my hand back. But pulling it away didn’t seem like
a good idea.

“An ordinary guy like that,” Harvey repeated. “The thing is Selina,
I’m so fond of you both. Bruce was my friend first. You and I
only met after Two-Face came into the picture, but still. I think of
you as a kid sister, you know that. And I’d do just about anything to
protect my kid sister.”

“Harvey,” I began, but then I couldn’t think of how to continue.
Part of me wanted to remind him that I don’t need protecting, part of me
wanted to tell him to get to the point, and part of me wanted to get my damn
hand back so I could demonstrate a proper face-clawing technique.

Harvey took a deep breath, gave my fingers an unnerving squeeze, and then
released me, stood up, and paced. After several agitated steps back
and forth in front of the fireplace, he spun around and said, “Something’s
up with Eddie that both of you should know about.”

Shit. Something’s up with Eddie.
All I could think of was his visit earlier. “Me. Muffy.
Sex.” But nobody’d said a word about Claudia Muffington, not one
word. All Harvey had been talking about was me and Bruce. What
could Claudia and Eddie’s embarrassing back-of-taxi adventure possibly have
to do with… Uh oh.

Something’s up with Eddie that both
of you should know about.

I didn’t like where this was going.

“Why would Bruce possibly need to know about Eddie?” I asked lightly.

“Like I said, I’m fond of you both, Selina. But Bruce was really
just a cohort when I was riding high as an up and coming politico. But
you… Selina, if it wasn’t for your friendship, I don’t know how I
would’ve stayed sane through the Darth years. I’d hate to see anything
happen to Bruce on general principle, he’s a pal, but mostly I’d hate to see
any harm come to him because of what it would do to you.”

No, I did not like where this was going. The only thing that could
possibly be worse happened next: a heavy, familiar footstep in the hallway,
coming towards the door. Clup Clup Clup… and there was Bruce.

“Harvey, how are you?” he said warmly, “Alfred told me you stopped by,
what a wonderful surprise.”

“Hi!” Eddie said, with a bright chipper smile, while the imposing figure
who answered the door regarded him with a grim frown. “Your name was
Pennyworth, right? Nice name. Catchy. You may remember
that mine is Nigma. I was here earlier.”

“I recall your visit, sir.”

“Yes. Thought you would.”

“I regret to inform you, sir, that Mr. Wayne and Miss Selina are
not at home.”

“Oh but they are, Pennyworth. They’re in there right now, I know
that.”

“Allow me to rephrase, sir. They are not at home to visitors.”

“That’s just it, they’re in there right now with a visitor, with Harvey
Dent, and that’s why I’ve got to warn them. It’s all my fault, don’t
you see? I’ve got to warn them about Harvey, that’s why I came back!”

Alfred pursed his lips, and adjusted his weight for leverage against the
door.

“I regret, Mr. Nigma, that I am
forced to speak plainly. Neither Mr. Wayne nor Miss Selina are
at home to you.”

“What if I said I forgot my reading glasses?” Eddie tried desperately.

In reply, Alfred took a swift step backward while swinging the door to
shut with a resounding slam in Eddie’s face.

Bruce offered his hand, a bright borderline-Fop smile on his face, a
marked contrast to the icy politeness he’d used with Eddie.

“Bruce,” Harvey replied, a little forced but genial.

Then there was a pause. The
loaded pause that even non-detectives recognize as ‘We were talking about
you right before you walked in.’

“I hear you were at the opera last night,” Bruce said, blithely ending
the stalemate as if he wasn’t aware of anything awkward. “I’m so sorry
to have missed it,” he added cheerfully.

It was so light and casual, so
socially correct, but the simple remark unleashed a cyclone of layered
tension that left me longing for the baccarat table. First there was
Muffy, Harvey was at the opera with Muffy—who Eddie slept with. Then
there was Bruce missing the opera—and I’d gone with Eddie, who slept with
Muffy. Then there was Bruce missing the opera so I went with Eddie as
in “Something’s up with Eddie that both of you should know about.”
And finally, the one I probably shouldn’t have been worrying about at
that point but the one that, for me, overshadowed all the rest: there was
Bruce missing the opera as in “I’m not avoiding our special place and not
avoiding you.”

“Oh, you didn’t miss much,” Harvey said, presumably to diffuse the
lingering tension. “Soprano was off. Say, did you know the love
story was tacked on as an afterthought? Original story was just about
the crime. Hermann. Obsession.”

I bit my lip. Without looking, I could imagine Psychobat’s blood
pressure surge at this delayed echo from his verbal duel with Eddie.

“I do recall hearing that at some point,” Bruce said airily.

“Some say the love story gets in the way, but I eh… Well, actually, I
don’t have an opinion either way. I was listening to the Knights
game.”

It went on. They chatted for
maybe a minute about the Knights’ chances in the playoffs, and then
something happened I can only attribute to a hallucination. I thought
I saw Eddie. This particular drawing room has a view of the garden
maze, and I was so OVER this nightmare of a day, stuck in yet another weird
Bruce/Rogue tête-à-tête, that I must have flashed on the previous one.
In amongst the deep green of the tall maze hedges, I thought I saw a lighter
green, Riddler green, just for a second, moving towards the house. The
men were still talking sports. Bruce simply would not look my way to
get the ˜˜putting out fires here, get out˜˜ signal. So I did
the next best thing to get rid of him:

“Guess what Dear, Superman is in the morning room. Why don’t you go
keep him company.”

Yes, I do know that Psychobat popped a
blood vessel right then. I figured I’d deal with that later.
For now, it got him out of the room. Bruce gave a magnificent
performance as a worldly sophisticate who is thrilled beyond words at the
thought of Superman in his home but is trying to carry it off with jaded
indifference. Once he was out the door, I turned to Harvey.

“So, where were we?” I asked cautiously.

“I was about to talk to you in a way you won’t like,” he replied.

“Like a big brother?” I guessed.

“No, like a district attorney,” he said seriously. “You know I
don’t include you when I say this, Selina, so don’t be insulted…” He
cleared his throat importantly—and I saw that movement outside the window
again, Riddler green, and bigger than before. “Criminals are
dangerous,” he said severely. “Especially when they want something
they’re not going to get. I like Eddie personally, I know you do too.
But Selina, he is a dangerous Rogue.”

I wanted to say “No shit, Sherlock,” but I couldn’t say a word.
Eddie, the dangerous Rogue, was outside the window. It wasn’t my
imagination playing tricks; it wasn’t just the green of his suit. I
could see all of him now, face, body, and bowler hat, pressed against the
window, finger to his lips in an absurd shushing gesture.

“First,” I told Harvey, trying to stay focused. “I’m a dangerous
Rogue too, so if you really don’t want to insult me, don’t go excluding me
from the sweeping indictment. And not only am I a dangerous Rogue,
Harvey my pet, so were you. What does any of this have to do with…
uh…”

I floundered because Eddie was waving his arms now, like New Year’s Eve
charades. The first word… sounded like… sharpening knives?

“Um,” I sputtered, trying to remember where I left off with Harvey.
He reached out and took my hand again.

“You and Bruce have a problem with Eddie,” he said soberly.

Outside the window, Eddie gave up on charades and mouthed: “We have a
problem with Harvey.”

“No, I’m sure we don’t,” I told Harvey, trying to sound just as sober as
he had, but afraid I sounded like the sputtering floozy in a sex farce
covering for her naked lover hiding in the linen closet.

“Yes, you really do,” Harvey said definitely.

“No, we really don’t,” I countered.

“You do.” “We don’t.” And he laughed.

“Selina, why didn’t we ever team up back in the day? We dance
divinely.”

“Yes, we do,” I agreed, offering a naughty grin that I hoped would keep
his eyes on me and away from the window (where Eddie was apparently
signaling a ten yard penalty for roughing the kicker). “We dance
divinely, Harvey, but I don’t think you would have liked my working that
closely with ‘Darth Duplicity.’ Besides, if your half started enjoying
yourself on a crime spree, it might have messed up the whole feng shui with
the coin. I can see the headline now: Two-Face switches to Dice,
Catwoman to blame.”

He smiled.

“It was Darth Duality,” he corrected, then the smile faded. “You
have a problem with Eddie,” he intoned.

My own smile faded too. He’d said it like the prophet of doom in a
Greek tragedy, a delivery he’s mastered from years of practice. I
decided I really had no choice but to let him continue.